Snow ushers in spring in northern New England

BOSTON (AP) – New Englanders were preparing for another messy day of snow as they welcomed spring’s unseasonable arrival.

Forecasts called for as much as 16 inches of snow in parts of northern New England through Wednesday morning, bringing slippery road conditions. Snow was expected to taper off in other locations.

“It’s the real deal _ the heavy, wet snow,” said National Weather Service forecaster John Cannon in Gray, Maine. “Travel will be treacherous into the early morning hours.”

Snow and sleet blasted the Northeast on Tuesday, where some places received over a foot of snow. Classes were cancelled in some districts in Massachusetts, Connecticut and upstate New York, adding a few more snow days to the calendar.

Snow also socked other parts of the northern U.S., with as much as 2 feet forecast in parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Icy roads caused numerous auto accidents. In Marlborough, Mass., the Harlem Globetrotters’ bus collided with a car on Interstate 290, but no one was hurt and the bus was able to drive away, the state police said. No citations were issued.

There was nothing unusual about a snowstorm in the Northeast this late in the season, when it can still get plenty cold.

“They don’t happen all the time, but it’s not, you know, unheard of,” said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass.

Nina Walker, of Woburn in suburban Boston, said she had to shovel about 8 inches of snow off her driveway before driving to Boston’s South Station to take a train to New York. As a lifelong New Englander, she takes the snow in stride, but draws the line at storms after March 31.

“Once I hear the word April, I am really offended when I hear the word snow,” she said. “So this is OK today, but a couple of weeks from now, it had better not happen.”

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